Explore "Burtran and Bimi" by Rudyard Kipling on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The orang-outang in the big iron cage lashed to the sheep-pen began the discussion. The night was stiflingly hot, and as I and Hans Breitmann, the big-beamed German, passed him, dragging our bedding to the fore-peak of the steamer, he roused himself and chattered obscenely. He had been caught somewhere in the Malayan Archipelago, and was going to England to be exhibited at a shilling a head. For four days he had struggled, yelled, and wrenched at the heavy bars of his prison without ceasing, and had nearly slain a lascar, incautious enough to come within reach of the great hairy paw.
'It would be well for you, mine friend, if you was a liddle seasick,' said Hans Breitmann, pausing by the cage. ' You haf too much Ego in your Cosmos.'